Nicaraguan Retrospect: Part 1

Here starts the much-delayed short series of stories from Nicaragua.

The Arrival

We arrived in the evening, Kevin, Aubrey, and I. I was nervous about customs, because we had a total of six bins with us, filled with donations for the orphans. “Regalos para los orfantos,” I repeated to myself when it became my turn to reach the front of the line. However, besides some confusion involving the inspection of some sunflower seeds we had with us, things went smoothly. Shawna, our coordinator, eagerly awaited us outside, and we loaded the back of a truck with our bins and luggage. It was hot and humid. And so began the two hour trip from Managua to San Jorge.

Despite the long drive, things passed quickly. We soon left the city into the rural area, onto the very bumpy pothole-ridden dirt roads of Nicaragua. I listened to Shawna and our driver, Don Ramon, speak in Spanish and was drowsily relieved as I understood their conversation. Street dogs ran across the road in the dark with an algorithm-like frequency, their skeletal bodies dashing in front of us at seemingly even intervals, reminding me of a video game. Our truck hit one and everyone in the truck cried out and became upset. As we drove on, I wondered why I was the only one who didn’t seem to care.

We stopped to get our driver some coffee at a gas station called “On the Go!”. There, a homeless man with no arms followed us so closely I could feel his breath on me as I made headway into the truck’s backseat. We drove on towards the orphanage; it wasn’t too far now. A few miles ahead, police sirens went off. As we were stopped, I heard murmurings in the car of past-police corruption. As our driver lowered his window, they waved us on. We arrived at the orphanage before midnight.

We pulled up to Casa Margarita, across from the Casa Asis entrance. There the rest of our team welcomed us, we unloaded our things, and they showed us where we were sleeping. It was dark so it was hard to see anything except the silhouette of the playground and some concrete paths. I started to feel the flit of mosquitoes and chilulies on my skin, the air seemed thick with them. The children were sleeping, so we treaded softly.

Inside I saw everyone’s things laid out and was happy to have a place to sleep. For some reason the scene excited me. I picked my mat on the floor and looked up at a chalkboard. It wasn’t until then that I realized we were in the orphans’ school. I had pictured something very different when I was first told we’d be sleeping at the school, like I imagined we’d be staying in a part of the school, assuming it had things like rooms and hallways. I found great irony in that the room reminded me of a museum exhibit I once saw labeled something like, “Typical School in Third World Country”.

The lights soon went out and I tried to fall asleep. I already felt a layer of sweat on me because of the heat and humidity, below my newly applied layer of deet. I slid my mat away from the wall where ants and spiders danced. It took an hour for me to fall asleep. And in my tired, hot, and sticky state, I thought I heard the sound of waves.